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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
Michael C has commented on (16) products
Pure Colour
by
Sheila Heti
Michael C
, February 26, 2022
What a mess. The magical realist animal trope that opens the book is a mere stereotype and serves only to gussy up the main character's/author's solipsism. The main character alternates between trite babbling and stale aphorisms. This writer fancies herself deep. I don't see it.
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Fantasyland How America Went Haywire A 500 Year History
by
Kurt Andersen
Michael C
, November 06, 2017
I've never given a book with so many flaws 5 stars, but this one deserves it. Andersen advances a dubious thesis (Protestantism + Enlightenment = Exceptional National Idiocy) and makes a raft of mistakes (e.g.: under-emphasizing racism and advertising/corporate power, dismissing Noam Chomsky as a conspiracy theorist, mis-attributing a key Karl Rove quote, relying too much on his own ideological centrism), but nonetheless delivers an indispensable account of the long-running, worsening reign of delusion in the United States. The thinking and writing are also unusually supple, powerful, and catchy. There are probably twenty major new concepts here. Don't pass this one up, if you are trying to keep track of reality in our age of unintentional tragi-comic nihilism.
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Recovery Freedom from Our Addictions
by
Russell Brand
Michael C
, October 09, 2017
A genuinely helpful recovery book! Brand is not faking his own recovery and reflection on 12 step work, and he writes about it with beauty, power, and, of course, humor. I am in recovery myself and find myself underlining passages and ideas on almost every page. Note that this book is especially helpful for those of us who need to get our minds around how to 12-step without getting resentful about all the God talk we encounter in the meetings and literature. Brand is hilarious and penetrating on this. Overall, he successfully defends his thesis that the emotional art we know as recovery is vital to us all.
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Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard and the Nez Perce War
by
Daniel J. Sharfstein
Michael C
, June 21, 2017
Magisterial presentation of vital material that speaks deeply to our past and present. Sharfstein knows all the sources and contexts, but truly lets the events speak for themselves. I never before realized how directly the Nez Perce leaders posed the question of race and citizenship/civil rights. The whites, including the more decent ones like General Howard, were almost all quite deaf to their calm insistence that Indians are full and complete human beings. The multiplicity of betrayals and arbitrary decisions to which the US subjected the Nez Perce is as hard to face as it is vital for understanding the struggle to make America truly great, someday, for the first time. Sharfstein also uses colorful scenic details and character sketches to bring the story alive. The story is well-paced and entertainingly structured. Overall, this is a great but painful read.
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Kingdom of Speech
by
Tom Wolfe
Michael C
, September 17, 2016
Tom Wolfe hates Noam Chomsky's guts, but has never been able to find a way to land a punch. This book is his last, best attempt, relying on a single nitpick about a side issue in linguistics that Wolfe barely understands. This is a fruitless, misleading, solipsistic ax-grind by a hugely over-rated writer. The fact that Wolfe, the clown in the high-collared white suit, tries to attack Chomsky for how he dresses is at least a source of humor, as is this neocon hack's arrival at an attack on evolution. Don't waste your time or money on this tripe.
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Power Paradox How We Gain & Lose Influence
by
Dacher Keltner
Michael C
, May 24, 2016
Very useful, but seriously flawed. Keltner knows a great deal of important information about the psychology of individual power-wielding, but is a markedly poor guide to its genesis and wider politics. He presumes that power results exclusively from the interaction of personal behavior and group concessions. In reality, of course, much power is granted by blind luck, institutional arbitrariness, and dis/mis-information. Tellingly, in my view, Keltner makes no mention of the crucial distinction between "power" and "authority," and actually tends to collapse the former into the latter. Another word missing from this book is "capitalism." How is that possible at this late date?
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Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
by
Mary Roach
Michael C
, May 26, 2015
Pshaw. Nobody is ever going to Mars, as any competent science writer would know. The reasons are cost and radiation exposure. Roach is merely an exploiter who has figured out a clever way to use sciency-sounding factoids to sell her tripe. This pathetic book should never have been published. It is a trick on the gullible child who still thinks like it's 1959 here on our troubled planet.
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Capital
by
John Lanchester
Michael C
, March 12, 2015
Lanchester weaves enjoyable mysteries and writes with economy, wit, and cutting humor. Here, he turns his eye to a tale of class polarization. The characters are memorable Dickensian denizens of our heedless, make-it-or-break-it 21st century. Great fun and sharp insight on a serious topic.
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Chasing the Scream The First & Last Days of the War on Drugs
by
Johann Hari
Michael C
, March 11, 2015
This book is absolutely essential reading on one of the most important topics in our society and world. It speaks the truth about about addiction and the proper way to respond to it as individuals and citizens. The news is that just about everything you assume to be appropriate is wrong. If you care about human decency, get this book and read it well.
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Dollarocracy
by
John Nichols
Michael C
, November 11, 2013
Chock full of amazing (if no longer surprising) facts about the triumph of money over politics in America. The authors explain that the 2012 election devoured over $10 billion. Lots of important side stories, too, about things like history and the decline of journalism. Read it and weep (or light a torch).
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Verily, A New Hope: Star Wars: William Shakespeare's Star Wars 4
by
Ian Doescher
Michael C
, August 19, 2013
Is this a saber I see, handle toward my mind? Come, let me force thee! A little bag of tricky treats! Good fun and a nice way to learn this classic verse form.
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Myths of Happiness What Should Make You Happy but Doesnt What Shouldnt Make You Happy but Does
by
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Michael C
, January 22, 2013
Only in recent decades have researchers been paying systematic attention to actual emotions, not least of which is the prize of happiness, which everybody wants to maximize. Lyubomirsky is an insider in this unfolding effort and also a skilled tour guide. This is real self-help material, as opposed to so much PBS fluffery and haranguing. The best aspect here is the emphasis on detailed knowledge of how emotions actually happen and evolve. Will power alone is not nearly enough. If it were, why would we continue to need these kinds of books?
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Wild
by
Cheryl Strayed
Michael C
, August 16, 2012
Navel-gazing trivia fobbed off as wisdom. And sophomoric writing, too. The definition of over-rated and over-hyped.
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Drift the Unmooring of American Military Power
by
Rachel Maddow
Michael C
, April 07, 2012
What malarkey. Maddow doesn't understand her own topic, and her finding that the original intentions of the Founding Slaveholders is being violated is stale as it is pointless and misguided. Eisenhower's farewell speech happened in 1961. We need a twee, preening, over-rated talking head to restate it now? Why? The real story is not "drift," but empire and normalcy. Corporate capitalism requires permanent war spending, to keep itself out of permanent depression. They don't teach you about those things at Stanford, though, do they?
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Moment in the Sun
by
Sayles, John
Michael C
, September 21, 2011
An amazing achievement. Sayles manages to weave together a half dozen major characters and story lines, all while capturing all the idioms perfectly, subtly illustrating huge social and historical problems, and giving readers a history lesson about the rise of U.S. imperialism. And, quite unlike so much other current historical fiction, the writing is utterly unpretentious. Sayles is loyal to the story and the characters and the ideas, not his own ego.
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(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
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At Home A Short History of Private Life
by
Bill Bryson
Michael C
, September 21, 2011
This book is filed under Americana and Home Design, but it's actually more of a social history, with some science thrown in. As always with Bryson, it's a winner. The writing is crisp and engaging, and the book conveys a world of fascinating, hidden or forgetten facts and ideas. The only slow spot is when Bryson takes a side-trip into English country mansions.
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